Ships Which ship-launched fighters work best with high-skill AI crew?

[Sylow]

When engineers were introduced, they buffed the AI at the same time. Too many players got blown up and they all complained, so FD dialled back the AI algorithms somehow to make the battles more even.

Please, stop posting up this stuff. It was not true and never will be. It is not what has happened and i really don't know why somebody who was around as long as you are would keep repeating it.

To get the facts straight. In the very same patch, they did a few things:

• NPC AI got a few new maneuvers to use.
• NPC AI did learn to retreat out of combat when their shields dropped. And returned to the fight when shields were up again.
• NPCs got engineered weapons.

The first thing was an actual improvement of the AI and it stayed. It was the last AI upgrade we got, but we still have it.

The second part actually made for very boring fights. People in slow ships just shot at targets, when their shields went down, they managed to inflict some more hull damage, while the NPC was beelining away in a straight line. Then they waited for the NPC to return. Some were actually writing forum postings while "in combat", waiting for the target to return. As the players ships also recovered their shields, this thing added no danger. It merely made combat more boring for people in big ships. It's also not like there was any "damage challenge". Even if the NPC still had only a few percent of health left, it returned after recovering its shields. It played the "fly away when shields go down, then return" game till it blew up, no matter how many cycles of that it did.

At the same time, this made combat extremely trivial for anybody in a faster ship: as said, the moment the NPCs shields dropped, it beelined away in a straight line. Now use your imagination on how hard it is to shoot down such a target if your ship has sufficient speed to keep up with it... the term "fish in a barrel" might come to your mind.

That all being said, now let's look at the third part: NPCs got engineered weapons. And that stuff was bugged. It happened that an NPC had a frag cannons or multi-cannons, were every projectile fired was a railgun shot. Now picture a ship with several frag cannons, each shooting five pinpoint accurate railgun shots (being railgun shots, they did not have the spread of frag cannon projectiles) with one pull of the trigger.

This and nothing else was, what killed people right after that patch. And FD also explained that bug in the patch notes, when fixing it. So of course, people could know what actually hapened. Instead, they keep spreading the old story of super-smart AI killing people for a few hours.

So really, please somebody enlighten me why even people who were around at those times keep spreading that nonsense, while they should really know better?

 

[badibeat]

So really, please somebody enlighten me why even people who were around at those times keep spreading that nonsense, while they should really know better?

So people like me who were not around at that time get enlightened : )
Tanks for the detailed explanation. I keep some fragments of dev notes in my collection for similar reasons.

 

[d8veh]

Please, stop posting up this stuff. It was not true and never will be. It is not what has happened and i really don't know why somebody who was around as long as you are would keep repeating it.

To get the facts straight. In the very same patch, they did a few things:

• NPC AI got a few new maneuvers to use.
• NPC AI did learn to retreat out of combat when their shields dropped. And returned to the fight when shields were up again.
• NPCs got engineered weapons.

The first thing was an actual improvement of the AI and it stayed. It was the last AI upgrade we got, but we still have it.

The second part actually made for very boring fights. People in slow ships just shot at targets, when their shields went down, they managed to inflict some more hull damage, while the NPC was beelining away in a straight line. Then they waited for the NPC to return. Some were actually writing forum postings while "in combat", waiting for the target to return. As the players ships also recovered their shields, this thing added no danger. It merely made combat more boring for people in big ships. It's also not like there was any "damage challenge". Even if the NPC still had only a few percent of health left, it returned after recovering its shields. It played the "fly away when shields go down, then return" game till it blew up, no matter how many cycles of that it did.

At the same time, this made combat extremely trivial for anybody in a faster ship: as said, the moment the NPCs shields dropped, it beelined away in a straight line. Now use your imagination on how hard it is to shoot down such a target if your ship has sufficient speed to keep up with it... the term "fish in a barrel" might come to your mind.

That all being said, now let's look at the third part: NPCs got engineered weapons. And that stuff was bugged. It happened that an NPC had a frag cannons or multi-cannons, were every projectile fired was a railgun shot. Now picture a ship with several frag cannons, each shooting five pinpoint accurate railgun shots (being railgun shots, they did not have the spread of frag cannon projectiles) with one pull of the trigger.

This and nothing else was, what killed people right after that patch. And FD also explained that bug in the patch notes, when fixing it. So of course, people could know what actually hapened. Instead, they keep spreading the old story of super-smart AI killing people for a few hours.

So really, please somebody enlighten me why even people who were around at those times keep spreading that nonsense, while they should really know better?

Thank you for criticising my post. By AI, I meant NPCs, because that's wha some people call them. Yes, you are correcct. AI is what drives the NPCs. The details of how FD did it aren't important. What people actually experienced was how easy or difficult it was to deal with the NPC: They were easy, then very difficult to the point that there were a lot of complaints, then somewwhere between, which is the only point I was trying to make. I'll try to use the correct technical terms in the future.

 

[Sylow]

Thank you for criticising my post. By AI, I meant NPCs, because that's wha some people call them. Yes, you are correcct. AI is what drives the NPCs. The details of how FD did it aren't important. What people actually experienced was how easy or difficult it was to deal with the NPC: They were easy, then very difficult to the point that there were a lot of complaints, then somewwhere between, which is the only point I was trying to make. I'll try to use the correct technical terms in the future.

Yet the way you write it, it still kind of sounds like the NPCs were "made stronger" and "made weaker" again. While the actual problem was a bug: NPC weapons being utterly broken. Like the given example, where a frag cannon shot 5 railgun shots with pinpoint accuracy. Which on a frag boat can mean that you get hit by 60 railgun shots at the very same moment. (Yet the other way also happened: a railgun firing a single multi-cannon shot. But that did not lead to player ships exploding. )

So really, nothing was nerfed there. A terrible bug was fixed. [If it was not a bug, i also want a multi-cannon, which fires a railgun shot with every shot it does, while creating the usual multi-cannon heat. ]

 

[Darrett]

So really, please somebody enlighten me why even people who were around at those times keep spreading that nonsense, while they should really know better?

The beta servers actually did have a similar sequence of events as described; there was an increase in NPC capability and the engineering addition, and it was backed off somewhat for live. Early Horizons beta NPCs were far improved from live, and downright lethal. The engineering additions did go live, and had some additional bugs as I recall as well, like the multi-fire railgun you mentioned.

People just confuse the beta server madness during early testing as compared to live.

 

[metatheurgist]

Yet the way you write it, it still kind of sounds like the NPCs were "made stronger" and "made weaker" again. While the actual problem was a bug: NPC weapons being utterly broken. Like the given example, where a frag cannon shot 5 railgun shots with pinpoint accuracy. Which on a frag boat can mean that you get hit by 60 railgun shots at the very same moment. (Yet the other way also happened: a railgun firing a single multi-cannon shot. But that did not lead to player ships exploding. )

So really, nothing was nerfed there. A terrible bug was fixed. [If it was not a bug, i also want a multi-cannon, which fires a railgun shot with every shot it does, while creating the usual multi-cannon heat. ]

Yep, I'm still confused by people calling the NPCs "hard" during that time, they were never hard as long as they didn't have the bugged weapons.

 

[Darrett]

Yep, I'm still confused by people calling the NPCs "hard" during that time, they were never hard as long as they didn't have the bugged weapons.

It depends on the frame of reference; prior to those patches, a player sidewinder could stay out of all firing arcs of an Elite Anaconda pretty easily, so it certainly was hard(er).

 

[Sylow]

The beta servers actually did have a similar sequence of events as described; there was an increase in NPC capability and the engineering addition, and it was backed off somewhat for live. Early Horizons beta NPCs were far improved from live, and downright lethal. The engineering additions did go live, and had some additional bugs as I recall as well, like the multi-fire railgun you mentioned.

People just confuse the beta server madness during early testing as compared to live.

What i refer to and what people always speak about was exactly that: the "really great and strong AI during a beta, which killed so many people". It were just that: bugged weapons. [And yes, as my posting way earlier also described and i mention below again: the NPCs also got some new moves at that time. But the essential part of the upgrades was not removed. Only the bugged weapons and one maneuver which actually made fights extremely boring and NPCs crazily easy to kill were fixed again. ]

It depends on the frame of reference; prior to those patches, a player sidewinder could stay out of all firing arcs of an Elite Anaconda pretty easily, so it certainly was hard(er).

True. The NPCs got new moves at that time. Before that patch, NPCs had a bit less of variety, tended to fly forward in case of doubt (great for small ships) and also still had the spin of death, where an NPC would just stop and spin for half a minute... till destruction. The point is that three things happened in the same patch:
1. The AI got some useful new maneuvers, which they still have today.
2. They had a "flee and return" mechanic, which made them either boring to fight (if your ship was slow) or extremely easy to kill (if your ship was fast enough), but did not make the enemy any more dangerous. (Just consider: the NPC trying to run away from you in a straight line. Also see: "Fish in a barrel. With a shotgun. At point blank range. ")
3. They got engineered equipment. And the engineered weapons sometimes had bugs, which sometimes allowed them to blow up a player within a few seconds.

The later two were removed. But as some people reported that they were destroyed, some who did not encounter the bug concluded that they are so ace players that even the upgraded AI would not manage to kill them. And stick to that sentiment ever since, sternly ignoring what actually happened.

 

[CMDR-NOBODY]

Another vote for fixed beam for general use, or the multicannon condor for complimenting thermal heavy ships and/or finishing off fleeing ships.

x3 here! My elite fixed beam GU-97 rockz.